A Thousand Palms A Day

​​At the ticket window, a man who could be an elderly woman,her face so tired it falls asleep without her,takes your palm instead of your money,cuts it open with a knife that doesn't hurt,and with a knowing twitch of her 'stachereads the code in your blood, really a story in a story,a furred creature running across the page

with letters for footprints, and hurry up, you think,stick to his heels, the rain’s coming, he's already a darkle on the horizon, you'll miss the point of yourself if you don't read what he said in his tread!But she still has your handand when you try to pull it awayyou fondle her inner organsand she moans something in a language you can't repeat,each moment erasing itself, you can't repeat,and when you quit fidgeting so she can do her thankless job,your hand comes out without any fingers attached!She peels each finger like a piece of fruit,rewraps it carefully as a newbornand gives them back, one at a time;you plug them in like thumb drives,scars and arthritis and the muscle memoryof how to throw a dart intact.She stops at the second pinky, her eyes move aside,a strip of 8mm film runs through the sockets,showing you snapshots of yourself in the womb--the sun seems to be waiting for her signalbefore it closes the day, waiting until you understandeach of the shapes in your fingerprints,and when you do, you can tell she's a mother,the mother in fact of everyone you ever knew,smiling the smile of 1,000 palms a day for sixty yearswith no days off, and it makes you want to wee yourself,and she nods and says go ahead dearie, look down, what else did you think the drain was for? But just your wee, mind, don’t try to go with it. Life isn't done with you yet.